1. Field
This invention relates to electronic commerce, and more particularly to the combination of online gaming activity with offline behavior of game participants.
2. Description of Related Art
Search engines and click-through online advertising have revolutionized how retailers market to potential customers. Yet, while shopping online has become more popular, consumers, for the foreseeable future, will continue to patronize brick and mortar retail outlets.
Up to 100 million Americans (and even more worldwide) play online casual games. Overwhelmingly these are single-player experiences, yet gaming is historically a social activity that provides participants with dynamic interpersonal activity. Currently, large-scale, community-based, online computer games like World of Warcraft are designed to attract so-called “hard-core gamers” and can be played by thousands of people simultaneously and deliver a powerful social experience. Yet these massively-multiplayer games are not particularly attractive for the casual gamer, because they require an enormous investment of time and skill.
Social networking websites like MySpace and Facebook have recently become popular by offering a way for Internet users to socialize in an engrossing way. But few, if any, have yet to make money commensurate with their massive customer base.
Cell phones are increasingly offering more features above and beyond basic phone service such as e-mail, text messaging, location-based services and games. And while cell phone gaming has become more popular, few offer the ability to play with others and socialize. And while virtually most subscribers have access to location-based services, the sector has yet to take off.
Therefore, there is a need for a gaming platform that may enable retailers to take advantage of current mobile communication technologies to drive consumers to their physical store locations, based at least in part on a massively-multiplayer online computer gaming platform, with elements of social networking, in which people and their cell phones are the game pieces in team competitions to capture and defend real-world territory as part of the gaming experience.